Kindle Notes & Highlights
If really pushed for a response, I talk of cricket’s grace, its physical bravery, its psychological and intellectual dimensions, its emotional resonances, of the confrontation between batsman and bowler, of the struggle for power, the endless possibilities, the unpredictable flux. After four hours’ detailed (some might say definitive) advocacy, sometimes with the use of audio-visual aids and always with a complete description of the various grips a leg-spinner might use, I tiptoe out of the room before my unwitting audience wakes up.
Even so, I think we chose our role model well. No one could ever fault Scott for his extraordinary courage. His ideas were big; it was just his brain that was small. Even in 1910, when he embarked on his final doomed expedition to the South Pole, it was established practice to use huskies to transport equipment. Scott therefore chose to use horses, which all died. He was history’s greatest runner-up, a leader of men who, tragically, led them to their death. Reading his journals in the library, I was greatly moved by the fearless rigidity of his upper lip, a condition that the weather in the
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Cricketing agnostics habitually accuse us of using the game to blot out the more painful and difficult aspects of life. But what can be more painful and difficult than a cricket season?
The problem is that, despite appearances, cricket is not a team game. It is a game for highly motivated individuals who recognise that, for a match to take place, other people have to be present at the same time.
All sports reward success, but few punish failure as cruelly as cricket.
To succeed in cricket takes patience, well-honed skills and a fair portion of luck. To fail in cricket takes about forty-five seconds, including the walk to and from the wicket.
Cricket is a game of confidence, and I suspect the only surefire way to maintain that confidence is never to play it.
Pride may come before a fall, but nets come before a nought.
